Tag Archive for barter

BarterQuest will offer small businesses the opportunity to trade costs for profits

NEW YORK, May 14, 2013 – BarterQuest (www.barterquest.com), a platform that supports the exchange of goods, services and real estate, today announced that it will be an exhibitor at the Small Business Expo, taking place in New York City at Pier 92, 711 12th Avenue (52nd Street) on Thursday, May 16th. BarterQuest will be at booth 321.The company will encourage small businesses to become members of its trading platform.

On BarterQuest, businesses can trade their inventory for the goods or services they need or sell their goods and services to an expanding network of businesses and consumers, increasing their sales, reducing their costs, and expanding their customer base. The goods and services of member businesses will be the subject of special online promotions by BarterQuest. Moreover, they will be first in line to upgrade to BarterQuest’s new B2B platform which is expected to launch this year. The new B2B platform will offer its members immediate trade credit and the opportunity to trade with a highly targeted group of businesses that have been vetted for their attractiveness as trading partners.

Businesses that register at the Expo will pay a substantially reduced registration fee.

“Businesses are already active users of our site and have evidenced a demand for our services by the small business community,” stated Bianca Han, Executive Vice President of BarterQuest. “To successfully trade, you must first be able to network, communicate what you have and what you want for it, and trust your trading partner. BarterQuest is all about making your trades easy by providing effective ways for you to find the trades you’re looking for, to negotiate and complete your trades, and to have confidence that you’ll get what you bargained for. Further, cash can be used on the site to equalize trading values or to buy the good and services that are offered. When they barter, businesses can transform costs into profits, a form of alchemy that is a ‘win win’ for the trading partners.”

About BarterQuest

BarterQuest supports the exchange of all types of goods, services, and real estate by consumers and businesses. It offers a full solution for e-barter, providing platforms that allow its users to improve the economics otherwise available to them in the all cash market. Its trading platforms are based on proprietary, patented technology, including the instant matching of the haves and wants of users for two party and multi-party trades. Exchanges are facilitated by a user friendly Web design that is unique in its combination of features. BarterQuest is headquartered in New York, NY and is owned and operated by JPM Global, Inc., a Delaware corporation. For more information, visit www.BarterQuest.com.

Except for historical information contained herein, this news release may contain forward looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties.

Christmas time, time to share our love
Come and join the tidings to the world
Christmas time, the best time of the year
Yes, it’s Christmas time

A former boy group sang this song years ago. Indeed, there is something special about this time of year. The Christmas feeling is everywhere! At the latest you recognize it when you are on the packed streets and crowded shops to grab the most recent snip.

But why do you do this – all this stressful and hectic shopping marathon? Relax and swap this year’s presents from home! Go on BarterQuest and click yourself in five trouble-free steps to your Christmas gifts:

The Mayan calendar is supposed to end next Friday on December 21st and that has led some to believe we’re on a countdown to a global apocalypse.

But doesn’t it happen every year that some calendar ends and it’s our end? It was the same around the Millennium and we are obviously still alive on earth.

While some folks are out buying at the grocery stores, sacking their bank accounts, writing alleged tips “How To Survive The Mayan Apocalypse” or posting equivalent notes on Facebook, I handle it like Jim Valvano, an American college basketball coach “Take time every day to laugh, to think, to cry – that’s a full day.”

However, it will be better to be prepared – just in case! Here are our five barter tips to get ready for the apocalypse.

Get dressed up and swap for a fashion stylist. You never know who you will run across in the hereafter!

Who compunction your last call on earth or your first one in heaven/hell?

Is Steven Spielberg your icon? You can be the next Steven Spielberg when you record the end of the world with a Digital Video Camcorder. But be aware and charge your battery!

Take a GPS system with you because finally you want to know where you are!

Last but not least it’s better to carry a baseball bat with you to defend yourself against the monsters or aliens. It could also be possible to meet a New York Yankee legend and then you are able to play baseball in the afterworld! Wouldn’t that be great?

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. ~Colin Powell

We spent a lot of time in our business and learned it the hard way, but every day was and is worth it. It isn’t always easy to gain knowledge of your mistakes. Otherwise these are the circumstances you learn the most. At all times it is important to believe in yourself and your aims and never give up. You can make it. We made it!

After a magnificent Thanksgiving Day Parade, Santa has taken up his annual residence at Macy’s.

“A Million Reasons to Believe” is Macy’s current Christmas slogan. I’m impressed every time I pass the eye-catching letters “Believe” at the front of the flagship store. It’s the same when I see the bright lights of their Christmas tree with a star at the top. It gets me in the right mood for Christmas.

Obviously, New York’s largest department store has a million reasons to believe: a million reasons for you to spend your money for Christmas gifts! The word “Believe” has become part of a clever marketing campaign. But it also raises the question, “What do you believe?”

Whatever you believe, Christmas time is a sentimental time of the year. While it makes it easier to open your wallet, it’s all the more easy to open your heart. And while we are on the subject of wallets and the gifts we would like to give to say “we are thinking of you,” you certainly don’t have to spend tons of dollars for your loved ones on Christmas presents. Swap instead!

As a member of the BarterQuest community of traders, you can believe in our products and services because you can trust in our verified users. So take this season as an opportunity to verify your account on BarterQuest:

• Verify once and trade as a user who others can trust.
• Verification enhances site security and helps assure that your trading partners will be who they say they are.
• Increase your visibility with the icon.
• Join the premier ‘Verified Users’ club to chat and trade with other verified users.
• You must be verified to use points, our onsite currency that is convertible to dollars.

Antonio Palazzola’s Tips
1. Scan the trades. Keep an eye on [...] bartering sites for potential solid deals.
2. Always look over your shoulder. There are a lot of scammers out there. If something smells fishy, don’t go fishing.
3. Trading isn’t something you should just dive into. There are a lot of sharks out there that could take advantage of a novice. Start small either with lower cost items, or practice by trading with friends and using local papers.
4. You don’t have to be an appraiser, but you have to know your item. Your best strategy in a trade is your knowledge on the item. If you don’t know about it, don’t trade with it. If you know someone who appraises, bring them to your trade, if not, a smartphone works just as well. Just jump on eBay and you can get your answers. I use the site to check the prices that items are selling at. Retail and wholesale mean nothing in my world. I don’t deal with mall prices.
5. Always keep a good poker face. The less reaction you show in a trade, the more of a chance you have of gaining the upper hand and trading up.
6. Negotiating is learned through practice. Like anything else, the more you do it, the better you will be at it. Books like “The Art of Negotiation” help to get a good grasp on learning how to talk the talk.
7. Never bring cash to a trade.

Steve McHugh’s Tips
1. Decide if you are going to start a trade for a specific goal/item or just to see what you can accomplish. If you are just doing it to see what you can accomplish, than don’t put pressure on yourself and just have fun. You will be amazed at how far you can get.
2. The most popular and effective website is Craigslist. It just reaches more people than other sites. But you can use a search engine to find bartering websites for your location – a lot of these sites are great.
3. People always like to mention what their item sold for when it was brand new. Even if they got 50% off, they only mention what it was selling for at full retail price when it was new. You have to learn to address this issue quickly and effectively. If someone is willing to trade an item, they do not see a value in keeping it. You have to figure out that reason and justify the trade from there. Sometimes it is easy and sometimes not so easy.
4. If you want to take a trade string far, you can’t always worry about the exact value of an item. Trade value is way different than actual value. If I’m planning on making a trade string work, I like to start with items that people can’t shop a value for – unique items, rare items, or hard-to-get items. I want to trade to an item that I know could be hard to move because I can get it easier if the other trader has had a problem trading or selling the item. When I find the right person to trade it to and they can’t put an exact value on the item, it helps me make bigger value jumps and I can do less trades. But it is harder to do fast and takes patience.
5. When I post something for trade, I make sure to take good photos and be specific about details, but I leave out some information so that the person who is interested will call me. Then I can see where I can go with the trade.

This week, one of my best friends visited me spontaneously. I therefore took a day off yesterday to show him New York. He wanted to see Yankee Stadium so we set off to the Bronx.

When we arrived, our first view was of the huge, monumental stadium with the golden capital letters “YANKEE STADIUM.” But after that, we recognized a crowd of people who were waiting on line. It’s nothing unusual to wait on line in New York; however, the further we walked around the stadium the more people were lined up. Almost three quarters around the stadium people waited patiently. It was incredible.

At the beginning of the line we asked a security man why people were waiting on line because they couldn’t stay there for Yankee tickets. He explained that they handed out vouchers for a free Thanksgiving meal.

Under this aspect it was an oppressive feeling: a situation like this we just know from the newscast in the third world, where people can’t afford food, but what we saw there was true reality.

I told you that I am hosting Thanksgiving this year and I bartered for a private chef. I have been thinking about to donate the value of our Thanksgiving dinner. The holiday itself says “giving thanks”. Accordingly we should be thankful for what we have! Let’s celebrate Thanksgiving Day with our love ones and give thanks back to whom you think it should belong!

During this week I became aware of the following quotation: “Some people come into your life as blessings, others come into your life as lessons!”

The saying caught my attention because a person in my life who I really liked was changing his mind about our relationship from one day to the other. I tried to ask myself what happened; he wouldn’t talk to me in person, which disappointed me enormously.

In fact, from time to time things will change in your life – like the seasons. You don’t get an answer every time why a change of heart takes place. Life showed me that you’ll understand when you are ready for it. It’s time to move on.

One very good way to start moving on is to muck out your home and trade on BarterQuest. Not for nothing, BarterQuest is the premier site to swap valuable items you no longer need, even luxury items. Trade anything for anything. Find cars, motorcycles, collectibles, services, vacation rentals and real estate. And why not swap? Swapping will save you money, it’s green and it can make you and your trading partner happy.

Or do you need a change of scene? Let’s swap for a vacation home! It’s implicit in the expression “move on,” so move on… to another place and discover a new way of life. In our category Real Estate there are plenty of timeshares, beach front houses and properties which are waiting only for you.

Even though tough days are behind us, more will unfortunately come! The aftermath of Hurricane Sandy is incredible: Lower Manhattan is still without power – parts of it are still under water – and the subway system has had its worst damage in its entire history!

This was my first time in such a serious situation. I only knew hurricanes from newscast; suddenly I was in the center of the devastation – it was a strange feeling and it is still. Under such circumstances you become conscious of who take care of you. When you are thousands of miles away from home – like me – Social Media and especially Facebook develop into an important communication instrument. My friends and many acquaintances asked on Facebook if I was alright and wanted to know what really happened. Luckily my neighborhood was relatively untroubled by Sandy. There were only a few broken trees and damaged cars.

Unfortunately they are friends of mine who are still without electricity, water, and cell phone service. How can we help them? Be there for them! Support your friends in any way you can and show them that you are there for them: offer your apartment for them to stay, buy food, embrace them, or conjure a smile on their faces. Sometimes it is these simple things that help the most!

Through the worst that Hurricane Sandy caused, we are still New Yorkers and no one can keep us down. We are a proud nation and if we fall down we stand up stronger than we ever were before!

Friends of the night, it’s that time again, time for black and orange, our next holiday’s traditional colors. How will you celebrate Halloween this October 31st?

I usually get ready for Halloween last minute. But everything is different this year. Two months ago I got this great invitation from a friend for a costume party on the Upper East Side. So I made a decision to take pre-emptive action; I went shopping for my costume.

It was a bit stressful, but in the end it was worth the effort. I swapped for my outfit because I knew that it would be too expensive to buy (I need to keep whatever cash I can get my hands on). I traded intensively for two weeks and finally got it all: shorts, jersey, socks, black eye strips and shoulder pads. Yes, I decided to dress as a New York Giants football player. With the shoulder pads, and from just the right angle and in the right light, I looked like Victor Cruz.

I also bartered for my boyfriend’s costume. He doesn’t like to be seen wearing costumes, so I swapped for a one of a kind solution on our site. No one will be able to make him out wearing a horse’s head mask.